FTW96LA179
1996-04-23 · COLORADO SPGS, Colorado, United States · None · 1 aircraft · Status: Completed
Airport COS
Current FAA registration · N55126
- Make / Model
- CESSNA 172P
- Year of manufacture
- 1981 · 15 years old at event
- Engine
- LYCOMING 0-320 SERIES (180 hp)
- Seats / Engines
- 4 seats · 1 engine
- Last airworthiness date
- 19810702
- ADS-B equipped
- Yes — Mode-S A705DF
Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).
Aircraft involved
Probable cause & findings
the student pilot'S failure to maintain control of the aircraft during a go-around.
Factual narrative
On April 23, 1996, at 1115 mountain daylight time, a Cessna 172P, N55126, was substantially damaged following a loss of control while landing at Colorado Springs Municipal Airport, Colorado Springs, Colorado. The student pilot was not injured. The solo instructional flight was operating under Title 14 CFR Part 91. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan was filed. The pilot, who had accumulated 46 hours total flight time and 3 hours solo time, said he was doing touch-and-go landings on runway 17L after completing his air work in a designated area east of the airport. When he was ready for a full stop landing he said that he requested runway 17L so he would be close to his parking area. According to the pilot, as he flared the aircraft for landing, it began to settle and he attempted to go around. During this attempt, the left wing dropped and the aircraft impacted beside the runway. The pilot stated that a wind shear alert (LLWAS) began shortly after his accident. A review of weather information at the Colorado Springs Airport, revealed no evidence of an LLWAS alert during the time period and recorded wind, taken as part of a special observation immediately following the accident, was from 190 degrees magnetic at 4 knots. There were no gusts recorded. When returning from a solo training flight the student pilot was making a full stop landing. During the flare for landing the aircraft began to settle and the pilot attempted to go-around. The left wing dropped and the aircraft impacted beside the runway. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database (Pre-2008 Archive) Retrieved: 2026-02-12
Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file
NTSB_1996_FTW96LA179.txt.
Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb.
Full investigation docket on
data.ntsb.gov ↗.
Search this event elsewhere
External sources are reported, not agency: signal that something happened, not fact about what happened.
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Related research
Matched on aircraft type or causal vocabulary (wind shear, loss of control, go-around). All research papers
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2025 · Journal article (JAAER) A Scoping Review of Aviation Loss of Control Inflight Research
Loss of control – inflight (LOC-I) contributes to aircraft accidents at unacceptably high rates. Significant industry efforts and research have aimed to improve LOC-I prevention, detection, and recove…
- NASA NTRS 2025 · Conference Paper A Training Study to Improve Monitoring During A Go-Around
As part of an FAA program to improve go-around (GA) safety, we were asked to determine if we could improve the performance of the Pilot Monitoring (PM) during a GA maneuver.
- Flight Safety Foundation 2024 · FSF / AeroSafety World Go-Around Safety Forum Findings
Foundation Go-Around Safety Forum technical findings — examines why pilots fail to execute go-arounds when criteria are met (stabilized approach gate not met, energy state out of envelope, traffic con…
- SKYbrary (Eurocontrol) 2024 · SKYbrary article Loss of Control In-Flight (LOC-I) — SKYbrary Knowledge Base
SKYbrary comprehensive knowledge-base entry on Loss of Control In-Flight — definitions, contributing factors, accident case studies (Air France 447, Colgan 3407), and prevention strategies.
- Semantic Scholar 2024 · Article (International Conference on Networking and Services) Risk Assessment of Loss of Control In-Flight Trajectories for Urban Air Mobility Safety
In Urban Air Mobility (UAM), maintaining a minimum separation between aircraft is a safety requirement, which becomes challenging amidst congested air traffic and off-nominal conditions, such as Loss …
- Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons 2023 · Conference paper Utilizing Deep Learning to Predict Unstabilized Approaches for General Aviation Aircraft
Unstabilized approaches pose a major hazard for general aviation aircraft. In the period from 2009 to 2019, 3,257 general aviation accidents occurred during the landing phase of flight in which loss o…